


Sweden is a Neutral Country

by OddKid42



Category: Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
Genre: Anxiety, Awkward Kissing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Epilogue, Friendship (Yossarian and Orr), Guilt, M/M, Post-War, Sexual Identity, Tenderness, dissolution of a marriage, in that they are roommates and Yossarian hasn't killed him yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 12:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19425778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OddKid42/pseuds/OddKid42
Summary: Chaplain A. T. Tappman returns home to find his family unharmed by the war. Restive at this fact, he leaves to find Yossarian.





	Sweden is a Neutral Country

It was unrealistic. Chaplain A.T.T. Tappman returned home after the end of the war to find his beautiful wife and two young children alive. No illness, motor accident, deadly electrical fire, gas leak, plague, homicide, or assault had befallen them.

“Are you sure you’re healthy?” He had held his family members by the shoulders to scrutinize them. “Are you sure?” 

He knew that the insistence on safety made his wife uncomfortable. He knew he was scaring his children, but wasn’t teaching fear worth reducing the risk? He tried to rationalize the fear with his wife. Recalled how when he was deployed he was certain that something horrible had happened. The fear had only expanded with returning; now he could protect them. But he couldn’t stay beside with his wife on daily errands and follow his children to school. 

He could only give them advice from his service: If you hear a low flying plane, stay low. Don’t stand up. If you feel that you have made an unforgiveable mistake, come down and talk to your friends before doing something unrepairable. Do not place profits over human lives. Do not serve apathetic people or gods. Authority figures are often corrupt. There is no situation that you cannot leave. Don’t be afraid to say no and stand up for yourself. Sweden is a neutral country. (The last bit about Sweden confused his children a bit, but he thought that with the international relations becoming cold it was important to note for his son’s sake.) 

His children started becoming distracted, and a distraction, in school. They talked back to teachers and challenged rules. Tappman praised his children’s anti-authoritian attitudes to his wife’s frustration. 

The nervousness continued rather than absolving, and after three months of the continual sense of dread, his wife admitted that she had cheated on him once. 

She turned away with tears forming in her eyes from the guilt. He looked at her blankly. “Is that it? Honey, I’m more worried about hurricane safety. Do you think that the bathroom is sturdy enough for gale force winds?” (They lived in Wisconsin.) 

She told him to leave the house, first in anger then calming enough to recommend with a tone of concern that he should adjust to civilian life away from the kids. 

So Chaplain Tappman left the house with sincere goodbyes to his children, a final kiss of his wife, and reminders to stock a comprehensive first aid kit. He realized two days after staying in a hotel that what he truly needed was to see Yossarian alive and healthy to find peace. 

Sweden, Chaplain A.T. Tappman found out after arriving, is a large country. He was hopeful that there would be some form of a directory for American soldiers that have run off, but there wasn’t. He tried explaining the situation to a woman at the information booth in the airport. Retold the story of Yossarian and Orr leaving combat to live in Sweden. Is there not some kind of directory for refugees? Would they be refugees? Or a country-wide phone book? 

He wasn’t sure if it was due to the language barrier or genuine confusion, but she only shook her head. 

However, the community of American soldiers who had bolted to Sweden was relatively tight-knit, and it only took a month of driving to major cities and asking Americans if anyone knew two men named Orr and Yossarian before a former surgeon exclaimed, “The bastard who keeps putting crabapples in his cheeks!” 

The chaplain received the two pilot’s favorite bar after conforming that he was indeed a chaplain and not seeking them out in punishment by exchanging a few funny, surface-level stories (Yossarian receiving a promotion naked without explaining what the promotion was for or why he was naked) and Orr bobbing out in the ocean, making tea and fishing after another crash-landing. Once the former servicemen trusted him, they invited him to wait at the bar on Wednesday evening, so Wednesday evening he found himself on the stool near the door politely next to a beer. 

Come 9 o’clock, Yossarian entered, curled hair and tanned face in a thick overcoat, arguing fiercely with Orr, who was unexplainably but unsurprisingly in a Hawaiian print shirt and shorts. 

It was lovely to see him again. A calm washed over him. Then a thrum of excitement, and he left the beer to push towards him in the growing crowd. He didn’t plan what he wanted to say first but shouted over the noise, “Yossarian!” and then added as an afterthought, “Orr!” 

Yossarian’s face shifted from caution in identifying the speaker in the crowd to a beaming smile when he spotted the man’s approach. “Chaplain!” 

They hesitated a moment. Should they hug, shake hands? But Yossarian had placed his hands on either side of the chaplain’s arms, and said warmly, “What are you doing here?” 

“I am here to find you.” Yossarian seemed surprised, and Chaplain struggled with wording for a moment before adding, “It’s a long story. How are you? You found Orr.” 

The chaplain punctuated the last bit by turning to the man beside Yossarian. 

Orr was grinning but raised his hands defensively with a head shake. “Nope, I’m not going to be the third wheel.” He squinted a wink to Yossarian. “I’ll make my own company tonight. Have fun.” 

“You jerk.” Yossarian glared after him as he weaved his way towards the bar counter. “Ignore him, Father. A majority of his stupidity wasn’t faked.” 

“I’m not Catholic,” Chaplain replied, grinning overwhelmed with happiness that the two had made it. Joy radiated off his face in a glow, and Yossarian glanced away with introductions to the bar regulars, despite having never paid attention to them before, to cover up the warmth spreading across his own face. 

When the two returned by taxi to the former pilot’s apartment later in the evening, the chaplain’s relief had only amplified with the drinks, and Yossarian had given up subtlety in enjoying the other’s presence. Yossarian navigated the chaplain in a brief tour of the house to the chaplain’s cries of “It’s so cozy!” before Yossarian finally got him settled down on the sofa for the night. He paused and took a seat next to him on the futon. “So why did you come?” 

Tappman tried to explain about returning home and the sense of forbearance. The urge to see him to ensure that he was alive, for the anxiousness but also, he awkwardly explained, because Yossarian was one of the few people who treated him like a normal person. Not differently for studying religion or with contempt for answers involving God that he could not give. Just as a person. 

Yossarian nodded to the mention of the overwhelming stress. It had fortunately missed Orr and him, beyond Hungry Joe’s screams in occasional nightmares. “Do you think that you will ever go back?” 

Chaplain Tappman never considered the idea that he wouldn’t. Now that he thought about it, his old life seemed too idealistic. Could he truly have a living wife and two beautiful children after all the young men that he had seen die? Could he accept that his own family could die at any point for any reason and live normally? 

When he was younger the story of Job was terrifying to consider. That God could point to someone and test them by destroying everyone around them, and when he had asked as a child, that doubting was met with silence at best and a scolding for daring to question the divine at worse. Learning in seminary that it was meant as a metaphor only eased the concern slightly. Faced with war, the idea that God could simply turn away from human suffering became a greater, more pressing fear. 

“I don’t know,” Tappman answered. “I don’t know if I can act normal around them. I don’t know if I can love them without fearing that they would eventually die.” 

“Yeah.” 

They sat in silence long enough that Tappman started dozing off before Yossarian clapped a hand on his shoulder and woke him up. “I have a confession I need to make.” 

“I’m not Catholic.” 

“It doesn’t matter. Actually it’s better because I want you to hear it.” 

Tappman rubbed his eyes and propped himself up to listen. Yossarian glanced at him and then at the hardwood floors to speak. 

“After Nately died, I walked through Rome at night trying to find his whore to let her know. The old woman who usually was supervising the room told me that they had all been kicked out into the street, including Nately’s whore’s kid sister. Well, I went looking for the kid since you can’t leave a kid outside on the street like that.” 

He paused, and Tappman asked gently, “Did you find her?” 

Yossarian shook his head. “I couldn’t find her before running off to Sweden either. That first night though, I don’t know if I can describe it, Tappman. It was like all of the bad things outside of war that I try to ignore were in front of me. And I didn’t do anything about it. This was the night too that Aarfy shoved that woman out of the window, and they arrested me in front of him for not having leave papers.” 

Tappman remembered that. They sat in silence, and Yossarian didn’t continue. “Did you need someone to talk to about it?” 

“I don’t know,” he said. 

“You called it a confession. Are you wanting someone to forgive you?” Tappman supplied. 

Yossarian looked back to him hopefully. “Could you?” 

Tappman’s first instinct was to say yes, of course. There is nothing to feel guilty for. You did your best. But Chaplain Tappman thought through the description. “Did you know you could help and chose not to?” 

Yossarian said quietly, “I think I was trying to escape. It felt like hell, or purgatory.” 

Tappman answered honestly, “Then only the ones hurt by inaction can forgive you. The best lesson to take from this is not to be hindered by your own fears next time when you are able to help someone.” 

“Well, hell,” Yossarian said irritated, “what about you? You couldn’t get the flight number down. I had to run away to escape.” 

“I know,” Tappman said quietly. “They didn’t listen to me after you left either though I was persistent in arguing against it. I’m sorry for my lack of strength at the time. Please forgive me, Yossarian.” 

After a moment, the other man rubbed his neck and sighed. “Okay, fine. I forgive you. I wasn’t even sore about it. Thanks for being honest, I guess.” 

Tappman leaned forwards and kissed his forehead. The other man froze as Tappman leaned back again and smiled. “Thank you, Yossarian.” 

Yossarian absentmindedly felt the spot where he had been kissed, and Tappman noticed the flush underneath the man’s brown skin. Yossarian asked quietly, “What was that for?” 

“For thanks,” Tappman answered, “and joy at our reunion. And I felt like it. I always worried whether you made it to Sweden. I’m glad to have found you.” 

“I’m glad you found me too.” The night had set hours ago, and the house was quiet. It was easy to imagine that the world did not exist outside of the living room they were stationed in. With the lamp behind him illuminating softly, Tappman had a halo of light around his head. 

“You know,” Yossarian said quietly, “as soon as I saw you in the army hospital, I have been in love with you.” 

“I know.” He didn’t know know, but Tappman absorbed the information, reflecting back on his memories of their interactions, and confirmed that, yes, he had known. He could recall the awkwardness of their first meeting when he didn’t know how to talk to the injured, to offer his service of compassion, and Yossarian had been kind and continued to be kind towards him even in the face of increasing missions and his friends’ deaths. He had known in the mysticism surrounding Yossarian, unclothed in a tree over the funeral, and the deep humanity of rejecting God as apthetic. He had begged the chaplain to save him from death and easily forgave him when he couldn’t. 

He thought of how he became worried about him as much as he did his wife. Now he felt more comfortable around him than he did with her. Whatever person he had been before the war, he accepted that he could no longer cling to that image. In between the killing and gore, he had become someone else. 

Did that self love Yossarian back? He wasn’t sure, but he knew that he wanted to kiss him again in a way the single beer that he had drunk didn’t excuse. 

Yossarian was watching his face with apprehension, and Tappman smiled kindly to comfort him. The look faded slightly, but Yossarian waited for a response. 

“Come here then,” Tappman said gently and set a palm against Yossarian’s cheek. Yossarian shifted forward and met Tappman in the kiss. 

It was uncoordinated, they both felt as they navigated where to set their hands, Yossarian’s positioning against him on the futon and Tappman’s glasses, but they both felt it was good. Meeting again after coming out of hell mostly unscathed, it was good. 

Yossarian started to take off his shirt, but Tappman set a hand against his chest (holding back a comment in surprise at how solid it was). “Hold on. Let’s just- can we just hold each other?” 

He waited for the other man’s rebuff, but Yossarian smoothed his shirt down. They shifted to lie on their sides facing each other, and when Orr arrived back to the house in the early morning, the two had fallen asleep holding each other. 

Orr recovered from his surprise and developed an apple-cheeked grin at the sight of Yossarian’s arms around their former chaplain. However, he resisted the temptation to wake Yossarian up to embarrass him. Despite their long running, good-natured harassment of each other, Orr was content that his roommate’s ongoing, one-sided crush was fulfilled. In the morning, he could thoroughly tease the two men. With quiet whistling, he let them sleep.


End file.
